“Doesn’t he see people?” He shook his head. “Not unless it is absolutely necessary, and that only happens about twice a year. I don’t think there is anybody in this building that he’s ever spoken to—not even the managers.” He took her down to the general office. Ray had not come back. “The truth is,” confessed Johnson when she asked him, “that Ray hasn’t been to the office this morning. He sent word to say that he wasn’t feeling any too good, and I fixed it so that he has a day off.” “He’s not ill?” she asked in alarm, but Johnson reassured her. “No. I got on the telephone to him—he has a telephone at his new flat.” “I thought he had an ordinary apartment!” she said, aghast, the housewife in her perturbed. “A flat—where is it?” “In Knightsbridge,” replied Johnson quietly. “Yes, it sounds expensive, but I believe he has a bargain. A man who was going abroad sub-let it to him for a song. I suppose he wrote to you from the lodgings in Bloomsbury where he intended going. May I be candid, Miss Bennett?” “If it is about Ray, I wish you would,” she answered quickly. “Ray is rather worrying me,” said Johnson. “Naturally I want to do all that I can for him, for I am fond of him. At present my job is covering up his rather frequent absences from the office—you need not mention this fact to him—but it is rather a strain, for the old man has an uncanny instinct for a shirker. He is living in better style than he ought to be able to afford, and I’ve seen him dressed to kill with some of the swellest people in town—at least, they looked swell.” The girl felt herself go cold, and the vague unrest in her mind became instantly a panic. “There isn’t . . . anything wrong at the office?” she asked anxiously. “No. I took the liberty of going through his books. They’re square. His cash account is right to a centimo. Crudely stated, he isn’t stealing—at least, not from us. There’s another thing. He calls himself Raymond Lester at Knightsbridge. I found this out by accident, and asked him why he had taken another name. His explanation was fairly plausible. He didn’t want Mr. Bennett to hear that he was cutting a shine. He has some profitable outside work, but he won’t tell me what it is.” Ella was glad to get away, glad to reach the seclusion which the wide spaces of the park afforded. She must think and decide upon the course she would take. Ray was not the kind of boy to accept the draconic attitude, either in her or in John Bennett. His father must not know—she must appeal to Ray. Perhaps it was true that he had found a remunerative sideline. Lots of young men ran spare time work with profit to themselves—only Ray was not a worker. She sat down on a park chair to wrestle with the problem, and so intent was she upon its solution that she did not realize that somebody had stopped before her.